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# Bath salts may help rheumatoid arthritis
- URL: https://www.foodconsumer.org/bath_salts_rheumatoid_arthritis_0725120933/
- Published: 2012-07-25T22:32:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-22T16:05:00.000Z
- Description: In a double-blind trial, 30 patients with rheumatoid arthritis bathed daily for two weeks in heated Dead Sea salts or in table salt. Only the Dead Sea salt group improved significantly on most clinical measures, with the strongest effect at the end of treatment, lasting up to a month.
- Author: Food Consumer
- Tags: Lifestyle, Health News, #vivvo-import

By David Liu PHD

Wednesday July 25, 2012 (foodconsumer.org) -- A small trial in Clinical and Experimental Rheumatology suggests that Dead Sea bath salts can be used to help patients with rheumatoid arthritis.

In the double-blind trial, 30 patients with classical or definite rheumatoid arthritis were randomly divided into two groups. Both groups of patients had similar patterns or distributions of age, sex, duration and severity of disease and medical treatment.

One group were treated with Dead Sea bath salts heated to 35 oC while the other treated with table salt or sodium chloride. Treatment was provided once a day for two weeks. One rheumatologist evaluated clinical parameters in all rheumatoid arthritis patients immediately before and after treatment with Dead Sea bath salts or table salt, and one and three months after treatment.

"The clinical parameters evaluated included duration of morning stiffness, fifteen meter walk time, hand-grip strength, activities of daily living, circumference of proximal interphalangeal joints, number of active joints, Ritchie index and the patient's own assessment of disease activity," the researcher reported. 

Evaluated were also laboratory parameters including erythrocyte sedimentation rate and serum levels of amyloid A, rheumatoid factor, sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium. 

A statistically significant improvement was found in rheumatoid arthritis patients receiving Dead Sea bath salts only, in most of the clinical parameters evaluated. The best therapeutic effect was observed at the end of the treatment and lasted up to one month.

S. Sukenik of Soroka Medical Center in Beer-Sheva, Israel and colleagues conducted the trial.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a type of arthritis that causes pain, swelling, stiffness and loss of function in all the joints with the wrist and fingers most commonly affected. The disease affects more women than men. The disease starts between ages 25 and 55.

Readers should not mistake this bath salts for the illicit drugs called the same name bath salts. Bath salts (drugs) is a family of designer drugs often containing substituted cathinones whose effects are similar to those of amphetamine and cocaine.